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rshow55 - 05:44pm Aug 24, 2002 EST (# 3969 of 17697)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

There has been a "reading war" going on a long time. An enormous amount of research is summarized and synthesized in a widely respected book.

. Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print by Marilyn Jager Adams

Here is a key part of the logic she sets out - logic that is among the most respected in the reading field.

Adams shows a number of figures that block out and represent the reading process - and summarize much research and careful thought.

Adams speaks of processing for spoken language, and the additional processing needed for reading, and talks of "processors" - - each complicated - by which we experience and use language. Whether its divisions are exactly right, or defined with total clarity, they are useful and widely accepted. Fig 8 shows the whole system (p 158)

For spoken language, there is a phonological processor , a meaning processor , and a context processor .

The phonological processor handles the recieving and sending of spoken language sounds - hearing and speaking.

The meaning processor and context processor deals with the meanings of words at different levels of abstraction and in context.

There is feedback between the phonological processor and the meaning processor, in both directions. There is feedback between the meaning processor and the context processor, in both directions.

For reading there is an additional orthographic processor which responds to written words as the phonological processor responds to spoken words.

The orthographic processor is linked, in both directions, the phonological processor AND to the meaning processor.

On pages 159-160 Adams writes:

"Both the immediate and long-term impact of reading depend critically on the speed as well as accuracy with which readers can identify the individual letters and words of the text. This is because the utility of the associative linkages, both within and between processors, depends on the speed and completeness of the input they recieve. When the words of a text are processed too slowly or scantily, readers forfeit any automatic facilitation and guidance that the associative connections would otherwise provide. Commensurately, they also forfeit the opportunity to recognize, learn about, and understand what they have read.

" The accuracy and speed of written word recognition depend first and foremost on the reader's familiarity with the word in print. The more frequently a spelling pattern has been processed, the more strongly its individual letters will facilitate each other's recognition within the orthographic processor. The more frequently a written word has been interpreted, the stronger, more focused, and thus faster will be its connections . . . . "

rshow55 - 05:45pm Aug 24, 2002 EST (# 3970 of 17697)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

How about setting out to build fast and facile see-say connections of the most common words, according to a pattern which is statistically far easier than the one learners now have to confront?

For that to be possible, a current view based on assumptions would have to be wrong. On p. 159 Adams makes an observation about reading that must be right for reading as a working skill, but ends with four words, bolded below, that may not be right:

"It is especially important that the Orthographic, Phonological, and Meaning processor are all connnected in both directions to each other. This circular connectivity ensures coordination between the processors. It ensures that all three will be working on the same thing at the same time. More than that, it ensures that each processor will effectively guide and facilitate the efforts of the others. As we shall see, this is critical both to reading and to learning to read.

Is that true?

Or is it possible, and well worthwhile, to teach see-say facility at first for only the most common words, and without connection to meaning in the beginning.

Can a rudimentary orthographic processor connected at first only to the phonological processor, and working only for the most common words, be trained first ?

Is it easy to do this?

Even if it is easy, is it worthwhile?

I'm arguing that it IS easy, and that it IS worthwhile. Both testable assumptions.

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